Cable TV and a tendency to be a loner sorta made me a latchkey kid after we moved to Mexico City from Tula. My brothers were way older than me and there weren’t any kids on my street, just retirees and childless couples.

My dad’s plan for Cable TV seemed to be two-fold: All the sports he could watch thanks to ESPN, and an English tutor/teacher for me with ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS at all times. PBS made me an anglophile for sure, and being able to watch Dr Who, All creatures great and small, Miss Marple, and Upstairs and Downstairs sure helped me speak in English. Writing came from magazines, Mad Magazine, and comics.

Cablevision, our Cable TV provider, had to replace USA ads with local stuff, then with ads for their own company, and later with music videos once the VideoMusica channel went away (too soon if you ask me). So you’d get whatever was popular during ad breaks, and it was mostly stuff in English. Only downside was that ads and songs don’t last the same, therefore songs got cut short, and sometimes you’d miss the beginning text of who the artist was.

So was the case with Jane Child’s Don’t Wanna Fall in Love. I’m a sucker for videos of people walking on streets and being forlorn. It’s a Sam thing, I guess. It’s a sure fire pop hit, well crafted with an infectious hook. The song got a second wind by being part of GTA V’s nifty pop radio, with Cara Delevingne as the DJ.

A lot of these videos used in lieu of ads became fave artists of mine. Some I never knew who they were until much later in life, when I started revisiting and researching 80s music. I need to revisit Jane Child’s discography for sure.

-Sam J. Valdés López